LA residents call 911 when Facebook goes down

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said residents called the cops when social media went down.

When Facebook goes down, you can gripe on Twitter, or even go outside. Or you can call the cops.

That's what some Los Angeles County residents apparently did on Friday when the social media network went down for a few hours, according to tweets from a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sergeant.

"#Facebook is not a Law Enforcement issue," tweeted @LASDBrink, aka Sgt. Burton Brink, on Friday morning, "please don't call us about it being down, we don't know when FB will be back up!"

Facebook(FB, Tech30) reported an outage on all "web surfaces" on Friday morning, but surely the tweet was a joke or a tongue-in-cheek public service announcement, right? Seemingly not...

"We get calls all the time like this," @LASDBrink wrote about 20 minutes later in response to questions about his tweet, "cable TV, all sorts of things not working, they think we control."

Calls to Sgt. Brink have not been returned. The Sheriff's Department's website lists Sgt. Burton Brink as its community relations sergeant, and @LASDBrink is a verified account, which generally means Twitter(TWTR, Tech30) has deemed it authentic.